Man-aging Fatherhood

When my son turns 12 , Iam going to encourage him to go in for vasectomy.

Wife has gone to India for a week on some sort of business related thingy; which in my books means, 'away from Tys' time. This leaves the rein of running the household in my hands.

Did I tell you we have a maid from Nepal? Well we do. I don't understand a word she says and I have to resort to miming and dumb charade to get my tea every morning.

1 word. 3 letters. Sounds like :

Then I cup my man boobs.

I don't know how long she is going to stay.

So this is my human resource to handle my 2 kids.

I have , like a good manager, delegated my jobs. Considering that I make 50% of the human resource, I too have some role to play, other than prancing around like a monkey, much to the collective delights of the said children, trying to get the maid to clean the house.

Iam in charge of the sleep time and also the school run of the eldest one.

My son, the Object in Perpetual Motion, is mercifully run down by around 8 pm. This means that I can knock him out with a feather and he will sleep through till 5 am. At 5am I wake him up and he is at this age where he can brush his teeth, do his toilet and dress himself and sit on a chair with the expression of a zombie while I place his breakfast in front of him. At around 6am his school bus comes. At the bus stop downstairs its always the fathers that bring the kids down. So we have a School Bus Stop Dads Community.

Men are strange. When men become dads they are stranger. All of us are dressed in our night clothes. None of us know each others name other than in regard to Angel's Dad, or Jaydon's dad or R's dad. That is our identity. Our conversations are limited to the weather ( its hot/ humid/ getting cooler); to recession ( hows business? Picking up/ Fucked up ), parking woes and traffic. Once our wards are herded off into the bus, we get back into the lift, hit our respective floor buttons and stand in uncomfortable silence till we get off, bidding a parting that always goes ; Have a nice day.

Dads don't have much to say to each other. Unlike mothers. Mothers are a different story all together. My wife when she goes to the park with the kids ( this is her duty, since it involves activity), she comes back with stories about new families who I know will end up becoming close friends in the coming days where I will again be face to face with another dad, where the conversation will start and end on weather, work, parking and traffic.

The in charge of the sleep time for the 1.5 yr old mama's Velcro is a new one for me. Every morning when I get up I see my wife is already up and the 1.5 is on the divan with a milk bottle in her mouth. Every morning I cheerfully wish my wife a great morning and is replied with a wane smile and when asked , she will respond that Velcro has been giving her trouble in the night.

I do the necessary sympathetic gestures and get on with the day.

How much trouble can a 1.5 yr old girl give you!

A lot.

I found out the hard way and its only been one night. I have another 7 more to go.

She wakes up 4 times every night. The woken state is accompanied by loud howling which can only be abated by walking her around in my arms. The howling will in time (around 20 minutes) reduce in volume to a whimper and then to a slight snore. This is when I will try to put her back on the bed. Which will wake her up again and I go back to step 1.

4 times a night.

Iam seriously considering spiking her milk in the night.


I sometimes doubt the intelligence of a god who would make things the way he has made it. Now if it was left to me, children would have been born 21, with their own apartment.